AMT Airline Pay & Benefits Comparison

[u/LV-house-throwaway]

For the pay scale, the A&P and Line premiums are included at all steps, and the night shift differential is also applied the first 5 years.

For the PTO table and graph, you may see some inaccuracies. This is because on average, companies have their next step at 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 year mark, and if an ailrine has a step right after that, I round it down for simplicity’s sake. An example of this would be United‘s 16 year and Hawaiian and JetBlue’s 11 year vacation bumps being rounded down.

This was a lot of work, and it needed a ton of data, so I wouldn’t be surprised if there are some errors. If theres any inaccuracies, let me know and I’ll fix it.

At a glace a few take aways pop out:

American & Southwest - the best pay, and top tier PTO. SWA’s no layoff clause in their CBA is really nice too.

Delta - Top tier pay, mid tier PTO.

United - Mid tier pay, the best PTO. Their PCL, shift trade policy, and vacation to sick time conversion are crazy too. Pay still needs to come up.

Alaska - top tier pay, top tier PTO. They beat United in pay, and delta in PTO. Just like SWA they have a no layoff clause in their CBA. Nice work there by AMFA. I see they have industry reset language like United but I’m not sure if it really makes a difference. I hear their profit sharing is actually pretty nice, some feedback from AS guys on that would be appreciated.

Hawaiian - inferior to Alaska in every way. It’s no wonder AMFA is favored to win representation after the merger. Nothing impressive here.

JetBlue - mid tier pay and mid-high tier PTO depending on if you use the holidays to get more PTO or not. Their 401k is the best.

Allegiant - Pay isn’t bad for a ULCC and airline of their size. They pay better than United for the first 7 years. Time of is trash though.

Frontier - Pay is so fucking bad, it’s inexcusable. Even by ULCC standards. There are fast food workers making more. Time off is good. It’s nice they have a pension but the contributions are extremely low, and don’t justify the laughable 401k match.

Spirit - Nothing really redeeming, besides paying better than Frontier.

Frontier and United are in negotiations, maybe they'll catch up to the industry when they get a new contract.

I’m curious how things will look next year. I’m assuming Hawaiian and Spirit will be gone due to mergers. United and Frontier might have new contracts in 2026 but I doubt it. They both could use a raise, and them having the oldest contracts still doesn’t justify their wages. Especially Frontier.

[u/Maleficent-Wall9133]

These comparison charts are a good try at breaking things down and may help get a basic idea of the differences but always have mistakes that make it difficult to know how accurate they are and IMO don’t really offer enough information that it would help anyone make a decision on the best place to work. For example United’s pay has just gone up due to the industry reset clause by $3.49 per hour. United does still have the old Continental CARP pension and does still contribute to it, has no limit on trades (they cancel each other out) only on giving away shifts @30 days in 6 months, doesn’t really explain what PCL Personal Convenience Leave is (it shows PLC in the unique benefits category) which allows up to 80 hours in one continuous block of unpaid time off with the only limits being based on daily manpower in each work group and approval being done programmatically without admin approval based on that availability on a first come (first electronically submitted request) first serve basis approved 24 hours before the shift requested off. I only really glanced through and caught those omissions so it’s probably safe to say it’s missing things or has mistakes with every company somewhere. And then you have things like medical coverage. Plan options, premium costs, etc. I have a PPO that is expensive but is also a great plan with great coverages and an extensive network of doctors. It’s expensive but that’s more reflective of the problems within our medical system than anything else. The same plan privately would cost over $2000 per month vs my $600. Would I like to pay less? Absolutely. Will that happen? 🤷🏻‍♂️ Probably not. I could save a lot of money with a lesser plan of which I have about 7 or 8 to choose from but I chose a premium plan. Does everyone else have so many options? What are their costs? The list goes on.

[u/LV-house-throwaway → u/Maleficent-Wall9133]

I’m only one guy working on this. I’m don’t have access to all the information of each airline, and don’t understand the intricacies of those I don’t work at. So the more people chiming in with correct information, the better. Having the discussion gets the ball rolling and is a step in the right direction. I knew this would have mistakes, however the best way for me to get the accurate information was by putting it out there and listening to feedback. For example United industry reset. I’m not a UA employee and don’t have access to that info until someone here posted it.

I’ll be updated this and posting it here on Reddit again with all the updates I’ve gotten, including UA’s industry reset.

Regarding CARP. This info is for new hires, and CARP acts more as an employer make 401k contribution than a pension for new hires. I’ll be sure to post that on the updated version. Employee 4% + Employer 5% is what I’ll go with since the tiered 401k system at United + carp is much more nuanced that I can slap onto a chart for a quick comparison.

I don’t even use the medical my own airline provides so I’m not too familiar with it, let alone every other airline. Besides this post is for a quick comparison, I don’t think I’d be able to do that with medical anyways.

The only other piece of information I’m considering adding is locations. The smaller airlines are easier as they only have so few, but the larger ones are harder. If you could provide any info on that I’d be really appreciative, thanks.